Wow, Saltpetre. Smiley-face. (Sorry, I promised myself to never use an emoticon)

Is there any way of satisfying everybody?

Let those advocating growth select a number they feel reasonable. 150,000?

Stop immigration for one year. During that year, Australia has to create sufficient, but NEW, sustainable infrastructure – water supply, sewage treatment, power generation, et cetera – for 150,000 people. Politics should decide whether this is one new city, three towns of 50,000 or any other combination. None of this would be permitted in capital cities.

At the end of the year we recommence immigration to the number of people we have developed a capacity to support.

We continue building new infrastructure as we are able to, immigration numbers being adjusted after the fact.

In this way growth is ALWAYS based on what we have shown we can sustain as a nation.

Guaranteed growth and guaranteed sustainability. Possible?

A new world order: Camping out under the stars, or Fibre-Internet and plasma TV's for all? Contraceptives in the water supplies, or sell the holiday home and forget that overseas trip? Decisions, decisions.

So many priorities demanding attention and action, as WmTrevor put it, "to leave the world better than we found it", and as I think Ammonite posted, "we have not inherited this earth from our Fathers, we are merely borrowing it from our Children". So, Capital "C" Capitalism, or little "c" commune-ism?

In Oz we have so much work to do already, to correct all the deficiencies in the opportunities afforded to our Indigenous Australians, to revitalise and strengthen our industry, economy and welfare, to manage immigration and the treatment of refugees, to improve education and health care, ... and so the list goes on. And yet, we have not only single-handedly to stop global warming, but to end world poverty and to save the planet? Fair suck of the sav!

To borrow from many other posters: Emotion and rationality, experience, belief, education, politics, personal philosophy, family, friendships, career, lifestyle, quality of life, etc .. - all competing to determine, shape and mold our "world-view" and our priorities. So, what is the possibility of "Oz-think", let alone "global-think"? Science has breached many boundaries, yet a "science" of rationality, of "common sense", seems far off.

The world is currently like a stampeding herd, voraciously gobbling scarce and non-renewable resources, bursting at the seams with over-population, and running out of control with abuse, starvation and poverty. A "doppelganger" of disparity, disenfranchisement and devil-may-care. At once tremendous potential, and even greater destructive capacity. How, when and where will either the denouement or the implosion be determined?

And yet, we can have our cake: if all the "Wall Streets" are made simple clearing houses for contracts, all brokers become merely deal-arrangers, and all returns are limited to matching the CPI; all Government and Private investments and deals go through the World Clearing House; all wages are set on a sustainability-contribution basis; repression and abuse outlawed; no second warnings; big, tough, love.

WmTrevor, I have a terrible habit of mixing tongue-in-cheek with the serious, just to lighten the load. Get's me in all sorts of strife.

I would dearly love for Oz Not to get any bigger, population-wise, but for us to do a lot better with what we have. We are "the Lucky Country", in ways too numerous to recount, and I would just hate to see all that go to the wall because of some overblown misplaced sense of "humanity" which demands we take all the world's refugees because we feel sorry for them or feel badly about the deprivation and abuse from which they have flown.

My view is that it is necessary to solve the problems existent in their home countries. Difficult, but not impossible. "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; give him the means to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." Or, as my old man used to say, "I will help any man to shoulder his burden, but I will not carry it for him."

I'm afraid we need to get tough. We in the West have gotten "soft" - not that we are just going to sit back and be taken advantage of - but there is a line, and it is approaching. EU is getting tough on refugees, Roma or Gypsies moved on, racial intolerance, sovereign debt straining philanthropy, tensions mounting, middle-east boiling over. Things cannot go on this way.

The reality is, dictators and repressive regimes have to be overthrown, and the Third World revitalised. The gloves have got to come off - and before things get too out of hand. Libya is a test case maybe, and is not going well. Syria is even worse. Is "shock and awe" the only way to get through to some of these regimes? I don't have the answer; but an answer must be found.

As for Oz, we need to stay as self-contained as possible, or we can only bring further strife upon ourselves. Selfish? No, just practical. No point in importing more heartache.

Saltpetre said;
Things cannot go on this way.

Oh yes I am afraid they can and probably will.
What has not been mentioned by any here, haven't read all, is that it
will not be a matter of zero growth but of contraction.

At present we mostly look at an increase in energy for growth.
The real problem is can we scramble around to find enough sources of
energy to keep the steady state ?

If we cannot by means of solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal etc be
able to apply those electrical sources, then we will be in contraction.

If so then we had better start a Clydesdale draft horse breeding
program.

"The reality is, dictators and repressive regimes have to be overthrown"

Saltpeter, dictators and over population go hand in hand.

As populations out grow the regions resource base competition for them between rival groups (religious and ethnic) grow.
One of those groups win political power and coopt the greatest share of those resources for themselves.

It has happened throughout human history, is happening now and will happen for ever more.

If the current regimes in Syria etc fall then they will be replaced by a new regime representing other groups in those societies that will then oppress those groups who fomerly held power.

This vicious cycle will continue, and get worse, as long as their populations continue growing.

It will only end when their fertility and their populations fall to more sustainable levels consistent with the resoruces base of their territories.

You are absolutely right, Mr. Windy

Not even the most tyrannical dictator could stay in power if a significant proportion of the population (or a bigger foreign power) didn't support him. This is all part of an ongoing pattern where people outbreed their resources, overexploit their environment, and then fight over resources among themselves or with neighbouring groups. Religion and ethnicity make great rallying points when people are joining up sides. A large amoung of supporting evidence for this position can be found in "Constant Battles" by Prof. Steven LeBlanc (Archaeology, Harvard). See also

http://discovermagazine.com/2003/may/featwar

In LeBlanc's book, he talks about how shocked he was as a young archaeologist excavating in the American Southwest. Far from finding evidence of peaceful, noble Indians living in harmony with the environment and with each other, he found fortified settlements, widespread evidence of environmental degradation, collections of trophy heads, and whole villages massacred and the bodies left unburied. Judging by damage to skeletons, at least 25% of the men died violent deaths in raids or battles. There have been similar findings all over the world.

Since the real problem is now culture (since development makes it easy to stabilise population), any genuine help has to involve helping the more rational people in these societies to change attitudes and thus cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional. See these initiatives based on the work of Miguel Sabido in Mexico.

http://www.populationmedia.org/who/
http://www.alternet.org/story/147131/strange_but_true:_how_soap_operas_might_save_us_from_overpopulation?page=entire